Privacy policy

What we collect

What you type into the booking form.That’s your name, your email, and whatever event details you choose to give us — optionally a phone number, organization, venue, city, dates, and your message. It is sent straight to the band’s inbox and used for one thing: replying to you.

You’ll get an automatic acknowledgement with a reference number so you know it arrived. Nothing you send is added to a mailing list, sold, rented, or shared with anyone outside the band.

And whatever you type to Rufus.Rufus is the dog in the corner of the screen. He’s a computer program, not a person, and he only knows what the band has published on this site. What you type to him is sent to our server and on to the service that writes his reply — see Who else is involved below, because that part leaves Canada.

The conversation stays in your browser, and is not stored by us. Nothing you say to Rufus is written down on our server, and neither we nor the band can read it. Our server records that a conversation happened and whether it worked, never a word of what was said.

Your own browser keeps the conversation for the length of your visit, so that Rufus doesn’t forget what you were talking about when you move between pages. It is held in the tab you have open, it never leaves your device, and it is discarded when you close that tab. Closing the tab or clearing your browser data removes it immediately.

What we don’t do

• No analytics or visitor tracking of any kind.
• No advertising, no ad networks, no profiling.
• No tracking cookies. In fact, no cookies at all.
• No mailing list.
• No online store, so no payment or card details are ever collected or handled by this site.
• No accounts to create, and no logins.

Your browser’s local storage

A few small preferences are saved by your own browser so the site behaves sensibly on a second visit: whether you’ve already come through the front door, whether you turned the door sound on, and whether you asked Rufus to speak out loud. Two more last only until you close the tab: whether you’ve told Rufus he is a good dog, so he stays pleased about it while you look round, and whether you asked him to listen, so the microphone does not switch itself off every time you change page. They contain no personal information, they are never sent to us or to anyone else, and clearing your browser data removes them.

Who else is involved

Amazon Web Services hosts the site and delivers booking emails, on servers in Canada. Like any web host, its systems keep short-lived technical records of requests (such as IP address, time, and which page was requested) to keep the site running and secure.

Amazon Bedrockwrites Rufus’s replies. Our own server is in Canada, but the service that produces his answers runs in the United States, so what you type to him is processed there. We would rather it stayed in Canada and looked into it; no suitable service is offered here. Nothing you type is used to train anybody’s model. If you would prefer nothing left the country, use the booking form or email the band directly instead of the chat — both stay in Canada.

Your browser’s own speech recognition, if you switch on the microphone in the chat. It is off until you turn it on, your browser will ask permission first, and you can turn it off at any time — the button turns red while it is listening so you always know. It also turns itself off after a short silence rather than staying open, and it ignores anything it is not reasonably sure was said to it — so a television in the room is unlikely to reach Rufus, though nothing can promise that absolutely.

When it is on, the words you say are turned into text by your browser, not by us — which on Chrome means Google’s servers and on Safari means Apple’s, under their privacy policies. We never receive a recording of your voice, we could not store one, and only the resulting text is sent to Rufus in the same way as if you had typed it. If you would rather no audio left your device at all, simply type instead; everything works the same way.

ElevenLabsgives Rufus his voice, and only if you switch the voice on — it is off unless you ask for it, and a “Stop talking” button appears whenever he is speaking so you can cut him off. When it is on, the text of his reply is sent to ElevenLabs to be read aloud. What you typed is never sent to them.

Cloudflare Turnstile checks that the booking form is being filled in by a person rather than a bot. It sees your IP address and some basic details of your browser, and it sets no tracking cookie.

YouTubesupplies our videos, but only once you press play. Until you do, no request is made to YouTube and it receives nothing about you. Press play and YouTube’s own privacy policy applies to that playback.

Instagram and Facebooklinks are ordinary links. Following one takes you to that company’s site, under its terms and privacy policy.

How long we keep it

Booking enquiries stay in the band’s email for as long as needed to deal with the enquiry and any booking that follows. Enquiries that don’t lead anywhere are deleted within about a year. Technical server records are kept for 90 days or less, and never contain the contents of your message or your contact details.

Conversations with Rufus are kept for no time at all on our side — there is nowhere they are written down. The copy your own browser holds lasts as long as the tab is open and no longer.

Your rights

Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA) gives you the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have mistakes corrected, and to ask us to delete it. Email thecherrydogs@gmail.com and we’ll respond within 30 days. If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can raise it with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca.

Changes

If we start doing something new with your information — adding visitor analytics or a mailing list, for example — we’ll update this page and change the date at the top before it takes effect.